


The Man Who Saw the Devil

by metal_eye



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Actor Harry, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Paris, Backstage, Blasphemy, Devil Harry, Dom/sub Undertones, Grand Guignol, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religious Guilt, Theatre du Grand Guignol, Wine, thigh fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-22 02:10:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12471132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metal_eye/pseuds/metal_eye
Summary: "The Devil was staring at him."Louis shifted slightly in his seat and scratched the back of his neck, picking up his program and reading the title of the play again:L’homme qui a vu le Diable."He was wearing a satin red suit, one that certainly stood out amongst the usual greys and blacks of other Paris theatres, and instead of merely appearing the two times that the main character summoned him, this Devil followed the other men around on stage as they spoke and played cards. He kept looking over their shoulders and mocking their awkward movements, jerks and twitches compared to his own lithe prowl. The theatre audience, most readily impressed by gruesome effects and sensationalism, couldn’t take their eyes off him."Neither could Louis."Paris, 1912. Louis is a frequent patron of the Theatre du Grand Guignol. Harry is a performer. Tonight he's playing the Devil.





	The Man Who Saw the Devil

**Author's Note:**

> Writing smut is decidedly not one of my fortes. So when the 31 Days of Smut announced they needed pinch hitters, naturally I signed up in a fit of temporary insanity only to get stuck several times because smut is hard, dammit. 
> 
> I can't believe this actually exists. Finally. And it wouldn't exist at all if not for my amazing cheerleading squad: [twopoppies](http://archiveofourown.org/users/twopoppies/pseuds/twopoppies), [briamaria](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BriaMaria/pseuds/BriaMaria), [awriterwrites](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Awriterwrites/pseuds/Awriterwrites), and [tvshows-addict](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tvshows_addict/pseuds/tvshows_addict). YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST. Seriously. I could never have done it without you.
> 
> My prompt was "devil/devilish". The Grand Guignol is a real thing and you can learn more about it [here](http://www.grandguignol.com/). 
> 
> "L'homme qui a vu le Diable" is a real play performed at the theater based on a short story written by Gaston Leroux (THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA). For some reason when it was translated they changed the title to "In Letters of Fire", which. No idea. You can buy the story digitally from bn.com.

_Thou shalt win._

        --Gaston Leroux, “In Letters of Fire”

 

The Devil was staring at him.

Louis shifted slightly in his seat and scratched the back of his neck, picking up his program and reading the title of the play again: _L’homme qui a vu le Diable._

He was wearing a satin red suit, one that certainly stood out amongst the usual greys and blacks of other Paris theatres, and instead of merely appearing the two times that the main character summoned him, _this_ Devil followed the other men around on stage as they spoke and played cards. He kept looking over their shoulders and mocking their awkward movements, jerks and twitches compared to his own lithe prowl. The theatre audience, most readily impressed by gruesome effects and sensationalism, couldn’t take their eyes off him.

Neither could Louis.

It was a crowd accustomed to spectacle, but in this particular story, no real effects were needed beyond the breaking of glass — and certainly not the dramatic kind that caused the final death in “The Closed Door”, as Louis remembered from the previous week.

He knew all the plays, or at least a good number of them, having haunted the Théâtre du Grand Guignol with frightening regularity since landing at his dull Paris hotel several weeks before. When the touring show had been in London earlier in the year, Louis had been fascinated, though it had been universally panned by the scholars and critics. Louis had even tried to track down the troupe of players before they left London but was left standing pathetically on the train landing, minutes too late.

He couldn’t describe what it was. His family, his coworkers, even his friends thought him mad. “ _Barbaric_ ,” they said. “ _Disgusting_.” But then, why had everyone gone to see it? Couldn’t there be some value in such an abhorrent display? Some larger reason for its decadence, its evil?

As much as Louis desperately sought to justify the Grand Guignol’s existence, it hypnotized him. So when the opportunity came to hop the channel and help out at his friend’s bar all summer, Louis had leapt (hopefully not too enthusiastically) at the chance. His wages were small, but he ate frugally enough to afford weekly viewings of Paris’s most notorious tourist attraction.

Perhaps it was kinship he felt with the theatre’s grotesque performances. Louis had left London for Paris, gotten his part-time work at the dingy pub, and used up his savings on tickets to this hell-show. A theatre of the immoral.

Of course it was mere performance. The players onstage were able to remove their makeup after the show. The Devil here was merely human, after all, and the thrill down the back of Louis’ neck at seeing him was just a natural reaction to the wonders of avant-garde entertainment. Surely that’s all it was.

But then, that couldn’t be true. Because well before coming to see the Grand Guignol, though he’d prayed against it countless times, Louis had to actively push himself away from the damnation he knew was coming every time a smooth young gentleman tipped his hat and smiled. Every time he smiled back, every time he thought about what said gentleman’s hands might feel like on his skin or in his hair. There was no argument for it, and no future, and somehow wholly embracing a theatre of the macabre that made regular themes of murder, rape, insanity, and sin became disturbingly appropriate.

He felt at home with these people and their gutter values. It was where he belonged. Between these streets and the bar and his own perverse thoughts, Louis had entered a state of such depravity that it was only a matter of time before he transformed into a sewer rat, scuttling across old chapel walls, still in some distant hope that salvation was transferrable through stone.

And now, as if to drive the point home, the Devil, still staring at Louis, licked his lips, narrowing sultry eyes of fearful loveliness, and suddenly Louis couldn’t take it.

He stood abruptly, scooting to the aisle and hurrying to the entrance. Walk-outs were not uncommon given the transgressive nature of the material, but Louis had never left before the final curtain. His sense of guilt, however, could not compete with the overwhelming terror — or excitement — of being singled out… and, so it seemed, _desired_.

A cold wind outside broke him from his reverie. There was no fog, unlike most nights, and the cut of the air served as a smack in the face. Louis shook his head. He tried to think about real life, about _responsibilities_.

And yet, he couldn’t shake the sense that someone was _watching_ him. As if the predicament of the afflicted players onstage had become his own.

Cursing himself, Louis made his way to the back alley, somehow compelled to seek out the slender man whose very gaze seemed to bring misfortune, like his stage persona. Like the Devil and his long legs and slim waist held Louis under a dangerous spell.

There was a man in a top hat smoking a pipe outside the stage door. Louis approached him tepidly, not quite sure what was doing.

“ _Pardon,”_ enunciated Louis in his sparely practiced French. “ _Les acteurs… sont ici?”_ _*_

“ _Pourquoi?_ _**_ The man did not seem impressed.

Louis fidgeted for a moment. “ _Le Diable… j’ai ete envoyé par le Diable. _ ”***

The man with the pipe did not respond, but blew smoke against Louis’ face, looking him up and down. “ _Degoûtant, ces monstres._ ” He stepped aside, making a lewd gesture. “ _Entrez, s’il vous plait. _ ”****

Louis’ French was good enough to know he had not been complimented, but in his current state, how could he expect perfunctory kindness? A strange urgency had usurped him. No sooner than he had thrown out a “merci”, an open door was before him, and then an impossibly long corridor that seemed to end on a room bathed in red light.

Louis followed the light, pulling awkwardly at his collar as if it would unburden his breathing, or somehow save him. Still waiting on redemption, after all this time.

He was half expecting a ruckus in the room, chaos brought on by cast members shoving each other for mirror space. But there was only the Devil in his red suit, perched upon a stool, examining his makeup and how the sweat had made it shine.

If Louis had found him beautiful before, it was a negligent fancy compared to the sight of such a creature now. He had unbuttoned the front of his bright red suit, and wore no shirt underneath. The stage lights had been undoubtedly heated, giving a flush to his already red-painted skin. Perspiration dotted his chest. His hair was coiffed into two perfect horns.

Louis made a high pitched noise and backed up against the wall, paralyzed by want.

Nonchalantly, the hell-demon turned around and cocked his head. Seeing Louis, he uttered one word.

“Oh.”

Then he slithered up from his seat and moved toward Louis like a released rush of water finding its way down the side of a building. Louis was stuck fast to the wall, horribly intrigued but not brave enough to move.

The Devil put a hand against Louis’ chest as if to test his heat or humanity, gauge his temperature like a cooking tester stuck in a turkey. “ _Bonsoir_ ,” said the Devil, quite pleased with himself but not enough to be cocky. “What do we have here?”

Louis remained silent, half out of fear. His scientific sensibilities were sure there was nothing supernatural at work; yet the rest of him recalled the spell that brought him here, and it seemed to be more than just desire.

The Devil was smiling. “One of us, then?” he whispered, breathing hotly into Louis’ face, sliding one hand up Louis’ body and finding a small groove in his collarbone to make a home. “Is that why you came?”

Perfect English. Most Frenchmen spoke some quality of Louis’ mother tongue, be it messy or stilted or overly formal. But this? This was a demon with no such struggle. The Devil was an Englishman.

“Speak,” said the Devil.

“Ah,” said Louis. “I’m… sorry.”

“So not a mute!” the Devil exclaimed, licking his red-painted lips. “Sorry? You don’t have to be. I’ve been expecting you.”

Louis’ heart thumped wildly in his chest at the Devil’s words. He’d been _expecting_ him. He had to have been, given the easy exchange of English rather than French.

The Devil stepped off for a moment, walking slowly backwards toward a cabinet from which he removed a carafe of wine, spilling a bit. “Drink?”

Louis wanted to vocalize something, but the sight of the Devil licking his wine-soaked fingers stopped up his throat, so he simply nodded instead.

“Excellent.” The Devil grabbed a glass and filled it, stalking back across the dressing room like a predatory cat. Louis stayed still as if hypnotized, attempting stability, nearly shivering. He felt as if his neck might give out should he take a single step away from the wall — held fast, yet not unpleasantly, in a straight line.

The Devil was nearly nose to nose with him now, catlike green eyes searching Louis’ face for something, holding the glass of red wine above their heads like a communion. “’Open, if you dare,’” he said, quoting the very play he had just appeared in.

Louis opened his mouth. He may or may not have been salivating. It was hard to tell.

The wine was poured, into Louis’ mouth and on his face. He suddenly thought of it as a reverse baptism: not in fidelity towards God, but a _rejection_ of him, an acknowledgement that his thoughts and deeds had finally become debased enough to ruin all ideas of purity. And instead of mourning this development, Louis welcomed it with laughter.

“Amused, are you?” said the Devil excitedly, tossing the wine glass aside once it was emptied. “And what else amuses you?”

The horns of his hair had come undone. Hints of curl were roaming free. His tongue was slipping stealthily out between his lips, licking the air like a snake, tasting the tension. His chest, still splattered with fake blood and red paint, heaved in and out like a bellows attempting to restart a fire.

He was so entirely ravishing that Louis wanted to laugh again, almost in disbelief that there could be any doubt of what kind of man he was. He wanted to _die_ down here, amongst the damned. He wanted to lay waste to every notion that had given him pause in the name of holiness, of _virtue_. And he wanted this Devil to completely debauch him.

Louis reached out to take hold of an errant curl, heard a groan of pleasure, and pulled it inwards. Now the curls and face paint were right in front of him, first waiting, then daring to unbutton Louis’ waistcoat and kiss a trail from his chest to his chin.

Louis’ groan could only be matched by those of the whores in the Quartier Pigalle as this _man_ , this devil incarnate, started to lick every drop of wine from Louis’ face.

They were both heaving, taking advantage of every possible shred of air. And when the Devil brought a hand sideways to Louis’ neck, Louis leaned back wantonly, shoved his hips forward, chasing something, _everything_ , and then he… died a little.

“Pliant,” said the Devil, bringing his mouth closer. “Pliant and pretty and—”

Louis had had enough. He put his hand behind the demon’s neck and viciously pulled, crashing their stained lips together in desperate lust.

The Devil gave as good as he got, moving in and gripping Louis’ hair, tilting to the side and maneuvering their tongues into a rhythm that caused Louis to gasp. He could taste the Devil’s makeup and was reminded of the farce — the tangy, gelatinous taste belied the blood’s synthetic nature. Accompanying it was a dry red wine, saliva, bitter paint, and something more sinister.

So this was the taste of Hell. It was not unpleasant, and Louis licked at it lasciviously, savoring the softness of his Devil’s lips.

Upon a moment of breath, the Devil hummed wetly into the groove of Louis’ neck. “You’re the reason I lingered with the light on,” he said, lining up ridges of skin with his tongue. “You and that _look_ you gave me.”

What about the look you gave _me?_ Louis wanted to scream. Your spell. Your damned bone structure—

But then his mouth was once again the subject of intense examination. Louis groaned, pushing his hips forward, searching for a similar energy. The Devil was biting now, sinking his teeth into every available surface of Louis’ exposed skin, and simultaneously pulling at the cloth of Louis’ shirt with his fingernails, leaving scratches upon the way.

“Oh,” said Louis. It was too much, too hot. “Oh, _God_.”

He realized his mistake when the Devil’s curly visage came into his vision once again, smirking. “I’m afraid you’re in the wrong theatre for that,” he said, large hands fluttering along the seam of Louis’ trousers. “Perhaps you could try the church down the street?”

“Useless,” Louis breathed, unbuckling his own belt in encouragement. “Wrong crowd. Turns out I sold my soul to the Devil… quite recently.”

“Really.” Those green eyes, those lips moved lower, belly button and small trail of hair between them. “Fancy that. Shall I go further?”

“If you don’t, I will place a formal complaint with the theatre owner—”

“An _unsatisfactory_ performance,” laughed the Devil, threading Louis’ buttons through their stubborn holes. “Check your _talent_.”

Louis was very close to laughing, but it was mere seconds before his Devil yanked solidly at his belt and trousers and went in fast, inhaling Louis solidly as if he were surveying solid land, with his nose, his _tongue_. His errant curls tickled Louis’ hipbones.

“Ahhh,” Louis moaned, unsure of where a man went to learn this — because surely the skills they taught in brothels held no candle to what he was experiencing now. He moved himself agonizingly against the rough brick wall at his back, hardly aware of what his limbs were doing.

Head thrown back and eyes shut, he barely allowed his brain to actualize the thought, but Louis could almost imagine that the Devil’s tongue was forked, like a lizard’s — like he could use the split tip to surround him while hard, effortlessly licking at both sides of him in tandem.

Then Louis opened his eyes and looked down, and though the Devil’s face was still red, his lips and tongue were entirely human in their earnestness. Pressure and taste and curled fingers holding just long enough to drag him under into this dance made for damned souls. Those fearful eyes… those _lips_! Louis could barely breathe beyond sustained grunts of gratitude. The Devil was a master, as all the books said.

Louis finally went off so hard he expected the demon to _choke_ on it. But no, his face was rapt; swallowing everything, even slurping a little, purposefully messy, mixing saliva and whatever liquid sanctity had exploded from Louis’ body.

There was a lull in their breathing, but nothing was over — far from it. Dreamy and lax from coming, Louis yanked at the Devil’s curls to bring him back up to his face with the need to thank him profusely with his mouth. Louis tasted his own come, which was bizarre but not unwelcome. They licked at each other in layers of masonic desire fused by spit and wayward teeth, no longer looking for ancient wine, but aware of its repercussions. Louis decided that despite the moral danger of their activities, in this Devil’s Den, he felt quite safe.

Then again, so had the characters in _L’homme qui a vu le Diable_ , and at least one of them had ended up dead on the floor.

Makeup. The tangy gelatin of fake blood. Then a heave against the wall, as if to remind him of reality. “Darling,” the Devil was saying, as if he couldn’t help himself, “will you turn around for me?”

Louis would do anything for him at this point, but questioned the intent. “We can’t — I’ve never — ”

“Trust me,” said the Devil, and Louis did, absolutely, despite himself. He turned to face the wall.

“You are _profanely_ beautiful,” said the Devil, lifting the tails of Louis’ coat, smoothing strong hands across the dips and curves of Louis’ backside, paying special attention to the raw scars that had come from moving too quickly against the brick wall. “Just… gorgeous, like a blood moon.”

Louis could barely tell what he was doing, only exhaled and pushed himself outward like he was waiting for a disciplinary smack. What had become of him? What level of hell had he descended to? Somewhere that welts lovingly procured were more desirable than a proper courtship?

 _Proper._ What of it? When Louis felt a lukewarm liquid — red wine, he knew, just from prior association — flow from a spot above his tailbone, the notion of propriety was so far away he couldn’t even hit it with a skipping stone.

Kisses were pressed gently against his neck. The wine still poured, and Louis imagined it to be the same synthetic blood used to douse his companion in his earlier performance — one that would dye himself red as well, matching the two of them like a secret, depraved pact forged in hell.

There was a clatter as the glass dropped to the floor, then a huff, and Louis didn’t have to turn around to know his Devil was grappling with his own trousers, clutching in desperation at buttons, almost breaking his smooth façade.

Louis reached around and grabbed the Devil’s hand in a kind of wretched solidarity. “I’m not leaving,” he said pointedly, “nor going to the authorities with condemnation or projected guilt on my lips.”

Allowing a sigh to escape his sinful mouth, the Devil leaned in and kissed Louis’ neck in gratitude. “Those like us,” he said, “can’t afford a window through which one might escape and tell.”

“What would I be escaping from?” Louis arched his spine, placing both hands against stained brick. “I’d come straight back to you.”

“Dangerous talk,” breathed the Devil, now unclothed, putting slight pressure against Louis’ most intimate cavity. “I might never let you leave.” Then, more softly, his words massaging Louis’ soul, “Close your legs. Keep them tight.”

“Yes,” said Louis, almost following up with a _sir_. Christ, he was _done_ for.

When the sensation came, it certainly wasn’t what he expected. A swelling pressed not into him, but between, through his thighs with little resistance thanks to the wine. Each thrust was a revelation, a sweet grape-distilled sensation forceful enough to be dirty but still tepid, somehow, like a sexual game of tiptoe.

It came in rhythms between his legs, faster and faster, the Devil breathing hotly in his ear, “Tighter. Make me work for it,” with a slight hitch in his speech, as if he were just as affected.

Louis was on fire. Louis felt the Devil’s hand snake around to his front side and grip him there, determined to bring him off again, moving his deft hand in slides and circles and all the while breaching Louis’ trust and thighs with no real threat — only need and mutual sin. “Is it good?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Louis breathed, involuntarily, then again in time with his Devil’s hand: “God, _yes_ …”

The Devil was doing his best to make every sublime thing a kind of curse: smooth thrusts were punctuated with shortened profanities; the deft handling of Louis’ cleft and hips was accompanied by bites and a kind of reluctant brevity that belied the Devil’s obvious fear of loss. And it _burned,_ by God, it was so good that Louis knew evil was going to wait for him eagerly in the afterlife, and yet he could not for the life of him remember why he cared.

“I want to keep you,” swore the Devil, and it was so much more potent than love.

It took maybe another half minute of the Devil grinding into the flesh of Louis’ legs before he lost himself, giving up a spurt of come that both proved him human and seemed unnatural as it coated the brick wall, the insides of Louis’ thighs, and the tender place between his legs. He waited for Louis to join him, _asked_ him to with a final twist of his hand.

Louis lost his footing and fell to the floor, exhausted. The Devil followed, just as overwhelmed, it seemed. They embraced the cold floor and their bodies as one, torsos folding over each other in matching erratic heartbeats.  
  
Louis could have stayed there forever. But as much as he fancied this demon, he didn’t fancy sleeping half naked on stone with sticky legs and a head full of wine.  
  
The Devil’s hand came around to rest in Louis’ hair, smoothing it back from his forehead. His heated skin still pressed against Louis, enveloping Louis in a fiery warmth that was very difficult to move away from.  
  
“My sweet creature,” said the Devil, “my lovely thing, can you move?”  
  
“I’d rather not, under the circumstances,” said Louis, eliciting a short laugh from them both. “But yes.”  
  
“I’ll get us a cloth,” said the Devil, slowly lilting, like he wasn’t a supernatural thing at all but just a poor Englishman languishing in Paris to make a living amongst the debauched. He unpeeled himself from Louis’ back with great care, giving a swift kiss to his hair. “Wait here,” he said.  
  
Louis thought he might be willing to wait until the end of the world — raw and spent and tired enough to sleep for days. But the Devil was no liar, and returned in short time with something wet that he placed against Louis’ legs and backside with the grace of a courtesan. It was a gentle and respectful cleaning, barely touching Louis in oversensitive places. It cooled him, and Louis felt cured, except he didn’t want to fully recover from what had just happened. He didn’t want to go back.  
  
Louis pulled up his trousers and buckled his belt, turning around to face the Devil, who was doing the same. Louis still felt a pulsing in his hips, a throbbing that would eventually pull him towards another sin in a very short time.  
  
He looked up inquisitively, trying to appear carefree but surely belying his desperation to see this Devil again. Hell, Louis lived alone; they could bed each other in his apartment, or sanction the bar closet, even bring each other off in an alley somewhere close but completely deserted, yelling obscenities and somehow still in their own world.  
  
But the Devil surprised him by speaking first. “Do you have a name, darling?”  
  
Louis reached towards the lapels of the Devil’s red jacket and fingered the fabric coyly. “Louis. My name is Louis. And yours?”  
  
The Devil’s lips curled upward in a sly smile as if he were ready to give a name like Lucifer. But he didn’t. “It’s Harry,” he said.  
  
“Harry.”  
  
The hallway Louis had taken to get inside had darkened. He needed to leave before the night swallowed the stage door completely. But as he backed up, eyes fixed on Harry’s, he asked the question he needed an answer to most of all. “Will I see you again?”  
  
The Devil — Harry — paused before smiling widely, showing large white teeth that somehow weren’t sharp or fanged. “‘He who seriously wishes to see the Devil,’” he quipped, “‘has but to summon him with his whole heart, and he will come.’”  
  
His whole heart.  
  
Harry leaned forward and offered Louis a final kiss, running his decidedly human tongue along Louis’ lips. “Louis,” said Harry, the name rolling off his lips like honey. “ _Ne vous perdez pas dans la nuit.”†_  
  
The tips of their fingers touched as Louis backed into the hallway, an unspoken pact to meet again, on another night. Perhaps many nights. As many nights as Louis could manage to breach the bars of his own psychological reservations.  
  
The man who had been at the stage door was long gone when Louis re-emerged from the backstage hallway — and so, he imagined, were the rest of the theatre patrons, the staff, and any lingering tourists.  
  
He adjusted his shirt as if to subtly remind himself of his recent activities, brushed off his waistcoat, and set to walking down the stone street towards home. He spared only one glance back at the stage door, which still stood open, gaping like a portal to the underworld.  
  
He’d be back. Tomorrow, if he wished. If the Devil — if Harry kept his word.  
  
At one point in his journey home, Louis turned a corner and, still slightly delirious, happened to catch a glimpse of himself in the reflective surface of rain collected on the top of a barrel: hair askew, red paint smeared over his face like he’d been drinking blood. His trousers still held traces of stickiness. Any man who stumbled upon him him in the street would be horrified to see him. But Louis’ step was light, and he bore the grateful countenance of a man who had bet his whole fortune on a card game only to win it all back.

 

 

* “Excuse me. The actors… are in there?”

** “Why?”

*** “The Devil… I was sent by the Devil.”

**** “Disgusting. These freaks. Go inside, please.”

† “Don’t lose yourself in the night.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to 31 Days of Smut for letting me indulge in my Parisian Gore theatre fantasies! If you enjoyed the fic, go [reblog the post on Tumblr](http://31daysofsmut.tumblr.com/post/166325742535/31-days-of-smut).


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